US NBA Influence on French Basketball: investigating the impact of the NBA marketing techniques on French basketball clubs as Perceived by their Professionals and Fans.
Emore, Lucas (2023)
Emore, Lucas
2023
All rights reserved. This publication is copyrighted. You may download, display and print it for Your own personal use. Commercial use is prohibited.
Julkaisun pysyvä osoite on
https://urn.fi/URN:NBN:fi:amk-2023051811683
https://urn.fi/URN:NBN:fi:amk-2023051811683
Tiivistelmä
The National Basketball Association (NBA) is one of the most powerful sport leagues in the world. Understanding NBA marketing strategy is the point of departure of many sport leagues or clubs willing to become more powerful. The influence of the NBA in today’s basketball world is extremely significant. The French basketball league, named Ligue Nationale de Basketball (LNB), is one example of NBA influence. The purpose of this study is to investigate this impact of NBA internationalization on the French Basketball clubs, through the prism of marketing techniques. The author applied an inductive approach and interview as research method by interviewing 5 participants (three fans and two marketers), in order to collect both quantitative and qualitative data. The results confirmed the initial consideration that there is a significant impact of the NBA on the LNB, especially in terms of adoption of similar marketing techniques including social media, attractive content around the stars and the pre and post-match shows or event, but also promotional giveaways and outdoor advertising. Moreover, results highlighted a category of NBA marketing techniques applied in French basketball but not effective in the French market such as E-mail offers, television, but aslo mini packs, group sales, and booster memberships. Finally, the results also show that a part of the NBA marketing techniques used in the American basketball league were adapted yet not successful on the French basketball market such as virtual reality marketing, direct mails, employee incentives nights, face to face meetings with businesses, grass roots marketing, referrals, interactive sales center experiences, radio advertising and telemarketing. Future research could benefit from larger more representative sample as well as a comparative study of NBA impact on other national leagues across the world.